.\" CDDL HEADER START
.\"
.\" The contents of this file are subject to the terms of the
.\" Common Development and Distribution License (the "License").
.\" You may not use this file except in compliance with the License.
.\"
.\" You can obtain a copy of the license at usr/src/OPENSOLARIS.LICENSE
.\" or http://www.opensolaris.org/os/licensing.
.\" See the License for the specific language governing permissions
.\" and limitations under the License.
.\"
.\" When distributing Covered Code, include this CDDL HEADER in each
.\" file and include the License file at usr/src/OPENSOLARIS.LICENSE.
.\" If applicable, add the following below this CDDL HEADER, with the
.\" fields enclosed by brackets "[]" replaced with your own identifying
.\" information: Portions Copyright [yyyy] [name of copyright owner]
.\"
.\" CDDL HEADER END
.\" Copyright (c) 2006, Sun Microsystems, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
.\"
.\" $FreeBSD$
.\"
.Dd July 30, 2025
.Dt DTRACE 1
.Os
.Sh NAME
.Nm dtrace
.Nd dynamic tracing compiler and tracing utility
.Sh SYNOPSIS
.Nm
.Op Fl 32 | Fl 64
.Op Fl aACdeFGhHlOqSvVwZ
.Op Fl -libxo
.Op Fl b Ar bufsz
.Op Fl c Ar cmd
.Op Fl D Ar name Op Ns = Ns value
.Op Fl I Ar path
.Op Fl L Ar path
.Op Fl o Ar output
.Op Fl s Ar script
.Op Fl U Ar name
.Op Fl x Ar arg Op Ns = Ns value
.Op Fl X Cm a | c | s | t
.Op Fl p Ar pid
.Op Fl P Ar provider Oo Oo Ar predicate Oc Ar action Oc
.Op Fl m Oo Ar provider : Oc Ar module Oo Oo Ar predicate Oc Ar action Oc
.Op Fl f Oo Oo Ar provider : Oc Ar module : Oc Ar function Oo Oo Ar predicate \
    Oc Ar action Oc
.Op Fl n Oo Oo Oo Ar provider : Oc Ar module : Oc Ar function : Oc Ar name \
    Oo Oo Ar predicate Oc Ar action Oc
.Op Fl i Ar probe-id Oo Oo Ar predicate Oc Ar action Oc
.Sh DESCRIPTION
DTrace is a comprehensive dynamic tracing framework ported from Solaris.
DTrace provides a powerful infrastructure that permits administrators,
developers, and service personnel to concisely answer arbitrary questions about
the behavior of the operating system and user programs.
.Pp
The
.Nm
command provides a generic interface to the essential services provided by the
DTrace facility, including:
.Bl -bullet -offset indent
.It
Options that list the set of probes and providers currently published by DTrace
.It
Options that enable probes directly using any of the probe description
specifiers (provider, module, function, name)
.It
Options that run the D compiler and compile one or more D program files or
programs written directly on the command line
.It
Options that generate anonymous tracing programs
.It
Options that generate program stability reports
.It
Options that modify DTrace tracing and buffering behavior and enable
additional D compiler features
.El
.Pp
You can use
.Nm
to create D scripts by using it in a shebang declaration to create an
interpreter file.
You can also use
.Nm
to attempt to compile D programs and determine their properties without
actually enabling traces using the
.Fl e
option.
.Sh OPTIONS
The arguments accepted by the
.Fl P ,
.Fl m ,
.Fl f ,
.Fl n ,
and
.Fl i
options can include an optional D language
.Ar predicate
enclosed in slashes and an optional D language
.Ar action
statement list enclosed in braces.
D program code specified on the command line must be appropriately quoted to
avoid interpretation of meta-characters by the shell.
.Pp
The following options are supported:
.Bl -tag -width indent
.It Fl 32 | Fl 64
The D compiler produces programs using the native data model of the operating
system kernel.
If the
.Fl 32
option is specified,
.Nm
forces the D compiler to compile a D program using the 32-bit data model.
If the
.Fl 64
option is specified,
.Nm
forces the D compiler to compile a D program using the 64-bit data model.
These options are typically not required as
.Nm
selects the native data model as the default.
The data model affects the sizes of integer types and other language properties.
D programs compiled for either data model can be executed on both 32-bit and
64-bit kernels.
The
.Fl 32
and
.Fl 64
options also determine the
.Xr elf 5
file format (ELF32 or ELF64) produced by the
.Fl G
option.
.It Fl a
Claim anonymous tracing state and display the traced data.
You can combine the
.Fl a
option with the
.Fl e
option to force
.Nm
to exit immediately after consuming the anonymous tracing state rather than
continuing to wait for new data.
.It Fl A
Generate directives for anonymous tracing and write them to
.Pa /boot/dtrace.dof .
This option constructs a set of dtrace configuration file directives to enable
the specified probes for anonymous tracing and then exits.
By default,
.Nm
attempts to store the directives to the file
.Pa /boot/dtrace.dof .
This behavior can be modified using the
.Fl o
option to specify an alternate output file.
.It Fl b Ar bufsz
Set the principal trace buffer size to
.Ar bufsz .
The trace buffer size can include any of the size suffixes k, m, g, or t.
If the buffer space cannot be allocated,
.Nm dtrace
attempts to reduce the buffer size or exit depending on the setting of the
bufresize property.
.It Fl c Ar cmd
Run the specified command
.Ar cmd
and exit upon its completion.
If more than one
.Fl c
option is present on the command line,
.Nm dtrace
exits when all commands have exited, reporting the exit status for each child
process as it terminates.
The process ID of the first command is made available to any D programs
specified on the command line or using the
.Fl s
option through the
.Li $target
macro variable.
.It Fl C
Run the C preprocessor
.Xr cpp 1
over D programs before compiling them.
You can pass options to the C preprocessor using the
.Fl D ,
.Fl U ,
.Fl I ,
and
.Fl H
options.
You can select the degree of C standard conformance if you use the
.Fl X
option.
For a description of the set of tokens defined by the D compiler when invoking
the C preprocessor, see
.Fl X .
.It Fl d
Dump the D script to standard output, after syntactic transformations have been
applied.
For example, if-statements in D are implemented using such transformations: a
conditional clause in a probe body is replaced at compile-time by a separate
probe predicated on the original condition.
.It Fl D Ar name Op Ns = Ns value
Define
.Ar name
when invoking
.Xr cpp 1
(enabled using the
.Fl C
option).
If you specify an additional
.Ar value ,
the name is assigned the corresponding value.
This option passes the
.Fl D
option to each
.Xr cpp 1
invocation.
.It Fl e
Exit after compiling any requests and consuming anonymous tracing state
.Fl ( a
option) but prior to enabling any probes.
You can combine this option with the
.Fl a
option to print anonymous tracing data and exit.
You can also combine this option with D compiler options.
This combination verifies that the programs compile without actually executing
them and enabling the corresponding instrumentation.
.It Fl f Oo Oo Ar provider : Oc Ar module : Oc Ar function Oo Oo Ar predicate \
    Oc Ar action Oc
Specify function name to trace or list
.Fl ( l
option).
The corresponding argument can include any of the probe description forms
.Ar provider:module:function ,
.Ar module:function ,
or
.Ar function .
Unspecified probe description fields are left blank and match any probes
regardless of the values in those fields.
If no qualifiers other than
.Ar function
are specified in the description, all probes with the corresponding
.Ar function
are matched.
The
.Fl f
argument can be suffixed with an optional D probe clause.
You can specify more than one
.Fl f
option on the command line at a time.
.It Fl F
Coalesce trace output by identifying function entry and return.
Function entry probe reports are indented and their output is prefixed with
.Ql -> .
Function return probe reports are unindented and their output is prefixed with
.Ql <- .
System call entry probe reports are indented and their output is prefixed with
.Ql => .
System call return probe reports are unindented and their output is prefixed
with
.Ql <= .
.It Fl G
Generate an ELF file containing an embedded DTrace program.
The DTrace probes specified in the program are saved inside of a relocatable ELF
object which can be linked into another program.
If the
.Fl o
option is present, the ELF file is saved using the pathname specified as the
argument for this operand.
If the
.Fl o
option is not present and the DTrace program is contained with a file whose name
is
.Ar filename.d ,
then the ELF file is saved using the name
.Ar filename.o .
Otherwise the ELF file is saved using the name d.out.
.It Fl h
Generate a header file containing macros that correspond to probes in the
specified provider definitions.
This option should be used to generate a header file that is included by other
source files for later use with the
.Fl G
option.
If the
.Fl o
option is present, the header file is saved using the pathname specified as the
argument for that option.
If the
.Fl o
option is not present and the DTrace program is contained within a file whose
name is
.Ar filename.d ,
then the header file is saved using the name
.Ar filename.h .
.It Fl H
Print the pathnames of included files when invoking
.Xr cpp 1
(enabled using the
.Fl C
option).
This option passes the
.Fl H
option to each
.Xr cpp 1
invocation, causing it to display the list of pathnames, one for each line, to
standard error.
.It Fl i Ar probe-id Op Oo Ar predicate Oc Ar action
Specify probe identifier
.Ar ( probe-id )
to trace or list
.Ar ( l
option).
You can specify probe IDs using decimal integers as shown by `dtrace -l`.
The
.Fl i
argument can be suffixed with an optional D probe clause.
You can specify more than one
.Fl i
option at a time.
.It Fl I Ar path
Add the specified directory
.Ar path
to the search path for #include files when invoking
.Xr cpp 1
(enabled using the
.Fl C
option).
This option passes the
.Fl I
option to each
.Xr cpp 1
invocation.
The specified
.Ar path
is inserted into the search path ahead of the default directory list.
.It Fl l
List probes instead of enabling them.
If the
.Fl l
option is specified,
.Nm
produces a report of the probes matching the descriptions given using the
.Fl P , m , f , n , i ,
and
.Fl s
options.
If none of these options are specified, this option lists all probes.
.It Fl L Ar path
Add the specified directory
.Ar path
to the search path for DTrace libraries.
DTrace libraries are used to contain common definitions that can be used when
writing D programs.
The specified
.Ar path
is added after the default library search path.
.It Fl -libxo
Generate output via
.Xr libxo 3 .
This option is the same as specifying
.Sy oformat .
.It Fl m Oo Ar provider : Oc Ar module Oo Oo Ar predicate Oc Ar action Oc
Specify module name to trace or list
.Fl ( l
option).
The corresponding argument can include any of the probe description forms
.Ar provider:module
or
.Ar module .
Unspecified probe description fields are left blank and match any probes
regardless of the values in those fields.
If no qualifiers other than
.Ar module
are specified in the description, all probes with a corresponding
.Ar module
are matched.
The
.Fl m
argument can be suffixed with an optional D probe clause.
More than one
.Fl m
option can be specified on the command line at a time.
.It Fl n Oo Oo Oo Ar provider : Oc Ar module : Oc Ar function : Oc Ar name \
    Oo Oo Ar predicate Oc Ar action Oc
Specify probe name to trace or list
.Fl ( l
option).
The corresponding argument can include any of the probe description forms
.Ar provider:module:function:name , module:function:name , function:name ,
or
.Ar name .
Unspecified probe description fields are left blank and match any probes
regardless of the values in those fields.
If no qualifiers other than
.Ar name
are specified in the description, all probes with a corresponding
.Ar name
are matched.
The
.Fl n
argument can be suffixed with an optional D probe clause.
More than one
.Fl n
option can be specified on the command line at a time.
.It Fl O
This option causes
.Nm
to print all the aggregations upon exiting if
.Sy oformat
or
.Fl -libxo
are specified.
.It Fl o Ar output
Specify the
.Ar output
file for the
.Fl A , G ,
and
.Fl l
options, or for the traced data itself.
If the
.Fl A
option is present and
.Fl o
is not present, the default output file is
.Pa /boot/dtrace.dof .
If the
.Fl G
option is present and the
.Fl s
option's argument is of the form
.Ar filename.d
and
.Fl o
is not present, the default output file is
.Ar filename.o .
Otherwise the default output file is
.Ar d.out .
.It Fl p Ar pid
Grab the specified process-ID
.Ar pid ,
cache its symbol tables, and exit upon its completion.
If more than one
.Fl p
option is present on the command line,
.Nm
exits when all commands have exited, reporting the exit status for each process
as it terminates.
The first process-ID is made available to any D programs specified on the
command line or using the
.Fl s
option through the
.Li $target
macro variable.
.It Fl P Ar provider Oo Oo Ar predicate Oc Ar action Oc
Specify provider name to trace or list
.Fl ( l
option).
The remaining probe description fields module, function, and name are left
blank and match any probes regardless of the values in those fields.
The
.Fl P
argument can be suffixed with an optional D probe clause.
You can specify more than one
.Fl P
option on the command line at a time.
.It Fl q
Set quiet mode.
.Nm
suppresses messages such as the number of probes matched by the specified
options and D programs and does not print column headers, the CPU ID, the probe
ID, or insert newlines into the output.
Only data traced and formatted by D program statements such as
.Ql dtrace()
and
.Ql printf()
is displayed to standard output.
.It Fl s Ar script
Compile the specified D program source file.
If the
.Fl e
option is present, the program is compiled but instrumentation is not enabled.
If the
.Fl l
option is present, the program is compiled and the set of probes matched by it
is listed, but instrumentation is not enabled.
If none of
.Fl e , l , G ,
or
.Fl A
are present, the instrumentation specified by the D program is enabled and
tracing begins.
.It Fl S
Show D compiler intermediate code.
The D compiler produces a report of the intermediate code generated for each D
program to standard error.
.It Fl U Ar name
Undefine the specified
.Ar name
when invoking
.Xr cpp 1
(enabled using the
.Fl C
option).
This option passes the
.Fl U
option to each
.Xr cpp 1
invocation.
.It Fl v
Set verbose mode.
If the
.Fl v
option is specified,
.Nm
produces a program stability report showing the minimum interface stability and
dependency level for the specified D programs.
.It Fl V
Report the highest D programming interface version supported by
.Nm .
The version information is printed to standard output and the
.Nm
command exits.
.It Fl w
Permit destructive actions in D programs specified using the
.Fl s , P , m , f , n ,
or
.Fl i
options.
If the
.Fl w
option is not specified,
.Nm
does not permit the compilation or enabling of a D program that contains
destructive actions.
.Pp
Set the
.Va security.bsd.allow_destructive_dtrace
.Xr loader 8
tunable
to
.Ql 0
to disallow the possibility of enabling destructive actions system-wide at any point at all.
Any attempts to enable destructive actions will cause
.Nm
to exit with a runtime error.
.It Fl x Ar arg Op Ns = Ns value
Enable or modify a DTrace runtime option or D compiler option.
Boolean options are enabled by specifying their name.
Options with values are set by separating the option name and value with an
equals sign (=).
.Pp
A
.Ar size
argument may be suffixed with one of
.Cm K ,
.Cm M ,
.Cm G
or
.Cm T
(either upper or lower case) to indicate a multiple of
Kilobytes, Megabytes, Gigabytes or Terabytes
respectively.
.Pp
A
.Ar time
argument may be suffixed with one of
.Cm ns ,
.Cm nsec ,
.Cm us ,
.Cm usec ,
.Cm ms ,
.Cm msec ,
.Cm s  ,
.Cm sec ,
.Cm m ,
.Cm min ,
.Cm h ,
.Cm hour ,
.Cm d  ,
.Cm day ,
.Cm hz .
If no suffix is specified
.Cm hz
will be used as the unit.
.Bl -tag -width indent
.It Sy aggrate Ns = Ns Ar time
Rate of aggregation reading.
.It Sy aggsize Ns = Ns Ar size
Size of the aggregation buffer.
.It Sy bufpolicy Ns = Ns Cm fill Ns | Ns Cm switch Ns | Ns Cm ring
Specifies the buffer policy for the principal buffer.
.It Sy bufresize Ns = Ns Cm auto Ns | Ns Cm manual
Buffer resizing policy.
.It Sy bufsize Ns = Ns Ar size
Size of the per-CPU principal buffer.
Same as the
.Fl b
flag.
.It Sy cleanrate Ns = Ns Ar time
Cleaning rate.
Must be specified in number-per-second with the
.Dq Li hz
suffix.
.It Sy cpu Ns = Ns Ar scalar
Specifies the CPU on which to enable tracing.
.It Sy cpp
Run a C preprocessor over input files.
Same as the
.Fl C
flag.
.It Sy cpppath Ns = Ns Ar path
Use the specified path for the C preprocessor rather than
searching for
.Dq cpp
in
.Ev PATH .
.It Sy defaultargs
Allow references to unspecified macro arguments.
.It Sy destructive
Allow destructive actions.
Same as the
.Fl w
flag.
.It Sy dynvarsize Ns = Ns Ar size
Size of the dynamic variable space.
.Sm off
.It Sy evaltime = Cm exec | preinit | postinit | main
.Sm on
Process create mode.
When using
.Fl c Ar cmd
to start a command,
.Nm
will first stop the newly started
.Ar cmd ,
evaluate the
.Xr d 7
program,
and then resume the
.Ar cmd .
The
.Cm evaltime
option controls the exact moment when this happens.
.Pp
The following table describes supported modes.
.Bl -column -offset indent "postinit" "D Program Evaluation Time"
.It Sy Mode Ta Sy D Program Evaluation Time
.It Cm exec Ta
Right at the first instruction of the command
.Ar cmd
execution.
.It Cm preinit Ta
Before
.Xr elf 5 Ap s
.Dq .init
sections.
.It Cm postinit Ta
After
.Xr elf 5 Ap s
.Dq .init
sections.
Default on
.Fx .
.It Cm main Ta
Before the first instruction of the
.Fn main
function.
.El
.Pp
Usually, there is no reason to change the default mode,
but it might be handy in situations such as shared library tracing.
.It Sy flowindent
Turn on flow indentation.
Same as the
.Fl F
flag.
.It Sy grabanon
Claim anonymous state.
Same as the
.Fl a
flag.
.It Sy jstackframes Ns = Ns Ar scalar
Number of default stack frames for
.Fn jstack .
.It Sy jstackstrsize Ns = Ns Ar scalar
Default string space size for
.Fn jstack .
.It Sy ldpath Ns = Ns Ar path
When
.Fl G
is specified, use the specified path for a static linker
rather than searching for
.Dq "ld"
in
.Ev PATH .
.It Sy libdir Ns = Ns Ar path
Add a directory to the system library path.
.It Sy nspec Ns = Ns Ar scalar
Number of speculations.
.It Sy nolibs
Do not load D system libraries.
.It Sy quiet
Set quiet mode.
Same as the
.Fl q
flag.
.It Sy specsize Ns = Ns Ar size
Size of the speculation buffer.
.It Sy strsize Ns = Ns Ar size
Maximum size of strings.
.It Sy stackframes Ns = Ns Ar scalar
Maximum number of kernelspace stack frames to unwind when executing the
.Fn stack
action.
.It Sy stackindent Ns = Ns Ar scalar
Number of whitespace characters to use when indenting
.Fn stack
and
.Fn ustack
output.
.It Sy oformat Ns = Ns Ar format
Specify the format to use for output.
Setting
.Sy oformat
to
.Ql text
makes
.Nm
use regular human-readable output which is its default behavior.
The options passed to
.Sy oformat
are directly forwarded to
.Xr libxo 3 .
Some of the supported formatters include
.Ql json ,
.Ql xml
and
.Ql html .
Note that this option will cause
.Nm
to not produce any output unless printing functions are explicitly called,
or the
.Fl O
flag is specified.
For more information see
.Sx STRUCTURED OUTPUT .
.It Sy statusrate Ns = Ns Ar time
Rate of status checking.
.It Sy switchrate Ns = Ns Ar time
Rate of buffer switching.
.It Sy syslibdir Ns = Ns Ar path
Path to system libraries.
Defaults to
.Pa /usr/lib/dtrace .
.It Sy ustackframes Ns = Ns Ar scalar
Maximum number of userspace stack frames to unwind when executing the
.Fn ustack
action.
.El
.It Fl X Cm a | c | s | t
Specify the degree of conformance to the ISO C standard that should be selected
when invoking
.Xr cpp 1
(enabled using the
.Fl C
option).
The
.Fl X
option argument affects the value and presence of the __STDC__ macro depending
upon the value of the argument letter.
.sp
The
.Fl X
option supports the following arguments:
.Bl -tag -width indent
.It a
Default.
ISO C plus K&R compatibility extensions, with semantic changes required by ISO
C.
This is the default mode if
.Fl X
is not specified.
The predefined macro __STDC__ has a value of 0 when
.Xr cpp 1
is invoked in conjunction with the
.Fl Xa
option.
.It c
Conformance.
Strictly conformant ISO C, without K&R C compatibility extensions.
The predefined macro __STDC__ has a value of 1 when
.Xr cpp 1
is invoked in conjunction with the
.Fl \&Xc
option.
.It s
K&R C only.
The macro __STDC__ is not defined when
.Xr cpp 1
is invoked in conjunction with the
.Fl Xs
option.
.It t
Transition.
ISO C plus K&R C compatibility extensions, without semantic changes required by
ISO C.
The predefined macro __STDC__ has a value of 0 when
.Xr cpp 1
is invoked in conjunction with the
.Fl Xt
option.
.El
.Pp
As the
.Fl X
option only affects how the D compiler invokes the C preprocessor, the
.Fl Xa
and
.Fl Xt
options are equivalent from the perspective of D and both are provided only to
ease re-use of settings from a C build environment.
.Pp
Regardless of the
.Fl X
mode, the following additional C preprocessor definitions are always specified
and valid in all modes:
.Bl -bullet -offset indent
.It
__sun
.It
__unix
.It
__SVR4
.It
__sparc (on SPARC systems only)
.It
__sparcv9 (on SPARC systems only when 64-bit programs are compiled)
.It
__i386 (on x86 systems only when 32-bit programs are compiled)
.It
__amd64 (on x86 systems only when 64-bit programs are compiled)
.It
__`uname -s`_`uname -r` (for example,
.Ql FreeBSD_9.2-RELEASE .
.It
__SUNW_D=1
.It
.No __SUNW_D_VERSION=0x Ns Ar MMmmmuuu
.Pp
Where
.Ar MM
is the major release value in hexadecimal,
.Ar mmm
is the minor release value in hexadecimal, and
.Ar uuu
is the micro release value in hexadecimal.
.El
.It Fl Z
Permit probe descriptions that match zero probes.
If the
.Fl Z
option is not specified,
.Nm
reports an error and exits if any probe descriptions specified in D program
files
.Fl ( s
option) or on the command line
.Fl ( P , m , f , n ,
or
.Fl i
options) contain descriptions that do not match any known probes.
.El
.Sh STRUCTURED OUTPUT
.Nm
supports structured output using
.Xr libxo 3 .
The output will always have a top-level object called
.Dq dtrace ,
followed by a list of objects
.Dq probes .
Each of the probe objects will to have a timestamp which is generated at
output time rather than probe firing time, an identifier for the CPU on
which the probe was executed, and the probe's full specification:
.Bd -literal
{
  "dtrace": {
    "probes": [
      {
        "timestamp": ...,
        "cpu": ...,
        "id": ...,
        "provider": ...,
        "module": ...,
        "function": ...,
        "name": ...,
        "output": [
           ... (script-specific output)
        ]
      }
    ]
  }
}

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<dtrace>
  <probes>
    <timestamp>...</timestamp>
    <cpu>...</cpu>
    <id>...</id>
    <provider>...</provider>
    <module>...</module>
    <function>...</function>
    <name>...</name>
    <output>
      ... (script-specific output)
    </output>
  </probes>
</dtrace>
.Ed
.Pp
It is also possible for XML output to take the following form if some
of the fields are empty (in this example, module and function values
are absent):
.Bd -literal
<?xml version="1.0"?>
<dtrace>
  <probes>
    ...
    <module/>
    <function/>
    ...
    <output>
      ... (script-specific output)
    </output>
  </probes>
</dtrace>
.Ed
.Pp
Similarly,
.Sy oformat
can be used to generate HTML:
.Bd -literal
<div class="line">
<div class="data" data-tag="timestamp">...</div>
<div class="text"></div>
<div class="data" data-tag="cpu">...</div>
<div class="text"></div>
<div class="data" data-tag="id">...</div>
<div class="text"></div>
<div class="data" data-tag="provider">...</div>
<div class="text"></div>
<div class="data" data-tag="module">...</div>
<div class="text"></div>
<div class="data" data-tag="function">...</div>
<div class="text"></div>
<div class="data" data-tag="name">...</div>
<div class="data" data-tag="... (script-specific output)">...</div>
</div>
.Ed
.Pp
Unlike JSON and XML, the
.Dq output
array is not present.
Instead, data is simply formatted into a div of class
.Dq data
and a data-tag is associated with each of the keys.
.Pp
The
.Dq output
array's contents depend on the probes' actions and is explained below.
The examples here are presented in JSON form as opposed to XML or HTML,
however the conversion explained above applies for all output formats.
.Pp
Any scalar output, such as output produced by the
.Fn trace
action is of form:
.Bd -literal
{
  "value": ...
}
.Ed
.Pp
The
.Fn printf
action begins with an object containing the formatted output of the
.Fn printf
action.
Subsequent objects contains the value of each of the arguments to
.Fn printf
in its raw form as if the
.Fn trace
action was used instead.
A
.Fn printf
statement which contains no arguments other than the message will only have
one object following the message object and its value will always be 0.
This is an artefact of the implementation and can safely be ignored.
.Bd -literal
# dtrace --libxo json,pretty -n 'BEGIN { printf("... %Y, ..", walltimestamp); }'

{
  "message": "... 2023 Sep  7 16:49:02, .."
},
{
  "value": 1694105342633402400
},
{
  ...
}
.Ed
.Pp
Scalar aggregations are aggregations which produce a single value for a given
key.
These aggregations include
.Fn count ,
.Fn min ,
.Fn max ,
.Fn stddev
and
.Fn sum .
Each one of them is represented by the key containing their name.
For example, the output of a
.Fn stddev
aggregation will contain a key
.Dq stddev
inside an
.Dq aggregation-data
object:
.Bd -literal
{
  "aggregation-data": [
    {
      "keys": [
        ...
      ],
      "stddev": ...
    }
  ],
  "aggregation-name": ...
}
.Ed
.Pp
The
.Dq keys
field remains consistent across all aggregations, however
.Fn quantize ,
.Fn lquantize
and
.Fn llquantize
need to be treated differently.
.Sy oformat
will create a new array of objects called
.Dq buckets .
Each of the objects contains a
.Dq value
and a
.Dq count
field which are
the left-hand side and the right-hand side of human-readable
.Nm
output respectively.
The full object has the following format:
.Bd -literal
{
  "aggregation-data": [
    ...
    {
      "keys": [
        ...
      ],
      "buckets": [
        {
          "value": 32,
          "count": 0
        },
        {
          "value": 64,
          "count": 17
        },
        ...
      ],
    },
    ...
  ]
  "aggregation-name": ...
}
.Ed
.Pp
Similar to scalar aggregations, named scalar actions such as
.Fn mod ,
.Fn umod ,
.Fn usym ,
.Fn tracemem
and
.Fn printm
will output an object with the key being equal to the
name of the action.
For example,
.Fn printm
output would produce the following object:
.Bd -literal
{
  "printm": "0x4054171100"
}
.Ed
.Pp
.Fn sym
is slightly different.
While it will create a
.Dq sym
field which contains its value, in some cases it will also create additional
fields
.Dq object ,
.Dq name
and
.Dq offset :
.Bd -literal
# dtrace -x oformat=json,pretty -On 'BEGIN { sym((uintptr_t)&`prison0); }'

{
  "sym": "kernel`prison0",
  "object": "kernel",
  "name": "prison0"
}

# dtrace --libxo json,pretty -On 'BEGIN { sym((uintptr_t)curthread); }'

{
  "sym": "0xfffffe00c18d2000",
  "offset": "0xfffffe00c18d2000"
}
.Ed
.Pp
.Fn stack
and
.Fn ustack
actions unroll each of the stack frames into its own object in an array.
The only real difference between them is that the
.Fn stack
action will produce a list called
.Dq stack-frames
while
.Fn ustack
will produce one called
.Dq ustack-frames .
The following is an example of their
.Sy oformat
output:
.Bd -literal
{
  "stack-frames": [
    {
      "symbol": "dtrace.ko`dtrace_dof_create+0x35",
      "module": "dtrace.ko",
      "name": "dtrace_dof_create",
      "offset": "0x35"
    },
    {
      "symbol": "dtrace.ko`dtrace_ioctl+0x81c",
      "module": "dtrace.ko",
      "name": "dtrace_ioctl",
      "offset": "0x81c"
    },
    ...
  ]
}

{
  "ustack-frames": [
    {
      "symbol": "libc.so.7`ioctl+0xa",
      "module": "libc.so.7",
      "name": "ioctl",
      "offset": "0xa"
    },
    {
      "symbol": "libdtrace.so.2`dtrace_go+0xf3",
      "module": "libdtrace.so.2",
      "name": "dtrace_go",
      "offset": "0xf3"
    },
    ...
  ]
}
.Ed
.Pp
The
.Fn print
action produces a
.Dq type
list in the following form:
.Bd -literal
{
  "type": [
    {
      "object-name": "kernel",
      "name": "struct thread",
      "ctfid": 2372
    },
    {
      "member-name": "td_lock",
      "name": "struct mtx *volatile",
      "ctfid": 2035,
      "value": "0xffffffff82158440"
    },
    ...
}
.Ed
.Pp
If the type is invalid, a
.Dq warning
object will be produced containing the diagnostic message as well as two
possible optional fields:
.Dq type-identifier
which contains the CTF identifier of the type and
.Dq size containing the size of an integer, enum or float.
The fields generated will depend on the kind of error that was encountered
while processing the trace data.
.Pp
Finally,
.Sy oformat
provides a special pseudo-probe to represent drops.
As
.Nm
polls for various kinds of drops
.Sy oformat
will produce output similar to the following in order to represent drops:
.Bd -literal
{
  "cpu": -1,
  "id": -1,
  "provider": "dtrace",
  "module": "INTERNAL",
  "function": "INTERNAL",
  "name": "DROP",
  "timestamp": ...,
  "count": ...,
  "total": ...,
  "kind": 2,
  "msg": "... dynamic variable drops\n"
}
.Ed
.Sh OPERANDS
You can specify zero or more additional arguments on the
.Nm
command line to define a set of macro variables and so forth).
The additional arguments can be used in D programs specified using the
.Fl s
option or on the command line.
.Sh FILES
.Bl -tag -width /boot/dtrace.dof -compact
.It Pa /boot/dtrace.dof
File for anonymous tracing directives.
.El
.Sh EXIT STATUS
The following exit statuses are returned:
.Bl -tag -width indent
.It 0
Successful completion.
.Pp
For D program requests, an exit status of 0 indicates that programs were
successfully compiled, probes were successfully enabled, or anonymous state
was successfully retrieved.
.Nm
returns 0 even if the specified tracing requests encountered errors or drops.
.It 1
An error occurred.
.Pp
For D program requests, an exit status of 1 indicates that program compilation
failed or that the specified request could not be satisfied.
.It 2
Invalid command line options or arguments were specified.
.El
.Sh DIAGNOSTICS
.Bl -diag
.It dtrace: could not enable tracing: Permission denied
This can happen when
.Nm
fails to enable destructive actions because
.Va security.bsd.allow_destructive_dtrace
is set to
.Ql 0
in
.Xr loader.conf 5 .
.El
.Sh SEE ALSO
.Xr cpp 1 ,
.Xr dwatch 1 ,
.Xr dtrace_audit 4 ,
.Xr dtrace_dtrace 4 ,
.Xr dtrace_fbt 4 ,
.Xr dtrace_io 4 ,
.Xr dtrace_ip 4 ,
.Xr dtrace_kinst 4 ,
.Xr dtrace_lockstat 4 ,
.Xr dtrace_proc 4 ,
.Xr dtrace_profile 4 ,
.Xr dtrace_sched 4 ,
.Xr dtrace_sctp 4 ,
.Xr dtrace_tcp 4 ,
.Xr dtrace_udp 4 ,
.Xr dtrace_udplite 4 ,
.Xr elf 5 ,
.Xr d 7 ,
.Xr tracing 7 ,
.Xr SDT 9
.Rs
.%T Solaris Dynamic Tracing Guide
.Re
.Sh HISTORY
The
.Nm
utility first appeared in
.Fx 7.1 .
